Portable tripods of the kind specified are widely employed for a variety of purposes which include serving as supports for various utility devices, e.g. used in geodesy, photography, .communications and others; as supports for personal missile launchers and other combat auxiliary purposes; and the like. In such portable tripods, the three telescoping legs are each hinged individually to the head portion whereby they are foldable into a fully collapsed state in which they can readily be carried, e.g. by means of a handle, grip or a shoulder strap. For erection and deployment the three legs of the tripod are each unfolded and the telescoping parts thereof are extracted. In known portable tripods of the kind specified each of the three legs is independent of the two others and is individually folded and unfolded.
Conventional tripods have the disadvantage of being inconvenient to carry which may be a particularly acute problem in case they are designed for supporting heavy equipment, to the point that two persons may be needed for transportation. In addition, the unfolding and erection of conventional tripods and the mounting of a utility device thereon is cumbersome and time consuming which may be detrimental whenever rapid deployment is required.